Kitchen worktops in Noak Hill

Yes. The rural northern fringe, with a small amount of estate housing giving way to cottages, smallholdings and one-off houses. Kitchens tend to be large but irregular, often incorporating a utility and boot room in the same space, with a freestanding range and long timber-or-stone runs against thick walls. On a street with no restrictions the constraint is other residents rather than a warden, so it is worth putting a cone or a car out early. It is noted on the job sheet at template so the fitting crew inherit the answer rather than rediscovering it. Two hours is the realistic figure.

rural cottage, 1950s estate housing, scattered detached and smallholding. Lime plaster over rubble moves in and out enough that a single long panel will show a gap somewhere along its length. Access is off a drive and through wide doors, so for once the piece size is not the constraint - the joins that go in are the ones we choose for layout and veining, not the ones the building forces. Settled on the drawing, cut once.

Country lanes with no restrictions and generous private hardstanding, though verges are soft and there is nowhere sensible to turn a large van on some stretches. The van gets close to the door and the stone comes off the tail lift onto a trolley, which is about the shortest carry we ever get. The maximum piece length is fixed at drawing stage and every join is placed over a cabinet gable from there. The drawing carries that decision through to the saw.

Worktop templating, worktop installation and worktop fabrication, in that order. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. So the nesting is planned around it rather than around a standard kitchen. Same slab run, or it is not a match. Oil boilers and range flues take up wall space out here, so we survey what is actually fixed to the wall before agreeing a run length.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. On the day that means dry-laying the whole layout first and only then pulling and bonding the joins. Nothing is bonded until the whole run sits flat. A notch around a boxed stack is machined with a radius at the internal corner, because a square inside corner there is exactly where a top will crack. Internal corners are machined with a radius and polished, and kept well clear of any join or cut-out. The drawing decides it, not the fitter. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Where a landlord or housing provider is involved there is a specification to meet and a process to follow, and both are settled before a date is offered. The workshop works from the approved drawing, so whoever signs it off is signing off the join positions too. The approved drawing is the instruction. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.